BALTIMORE -- Carl Sagan, the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University, today (Feb. 10) received the 1995 AAAS Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

The award, given by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), recognizes scientists and engineers who make outstanding contributions to the popularization of science. The award was given at the AAAS annual meeting in Baltimore.

"Dr. Sagan is recognized as one of the world's most prominent popularizers of science, who has devoted much of his nearly 30-year career to conveying the excitement and importance of scientific findings to a broad public," the AAAS judges said.

Accepting the award for Sagan, who is undergoing medical treatment, is Dr. Christopher Chyba, a former student now at the department of geology and geophysics at Princeton University.

Sagan, at Cornell since 1968, received a bachelor's degree in 1955 and master's degree in 1956, both in physics, and a doctorate in astronomy and astrophysics in 1960, all from the University of Chicago.

He is well-known for his work on the PBS series Cosmos, the Emmy- and Peabody award-winning show that became the most watched series in public-television history. It has been seen by more than 500 million people in 60 countries. The accompanying book, Cosmos (1980), was on The New York Times best seller list for 70 weeks.

He has published more than 800 scientific papers and popular articles and is author, co-author or editor of more than 30 books, including Broca's Brain, Comet, Contact and The Dragons of Eden, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. More recently, he wrote Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space; and the soon-to-be-published The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (Random House, 1996).

-30- EDITORS: The award will be presented at noon Saturday, Feb. 10, in the Hyatt Regency Ballroom.